Friday was a miserable day. It was rainy. It was grey. It was freezing cold…in every building I entered. The combination of all three made me crave soup. I was nudged a little in that direction thanks to the foodie stylings of S and E, and as we all know, I can eat soup any time of year. With my former home of South Louisiana at the fore front of my mind this past week, it seemed like the only solution would be a warm, rich gumbo.

Now, I am very much a born and bred Californian, so I was not born with that gene Louisiana people are born with…You know the one where you can make a perfect roux. My friend KK swears by the two beer method of roux making. It seems so flawless when she does it, however, I am never able to replicate it. Some swear the color of the roux should be like peanut butter, while other advocate a more chocolate syrup colored roux. So tonight, after deciding I wanted to fall more on the chocolate end of the roux color spectrum, I found myself wondering, should it be milk chocolate or dark chocolate syrup?!?!?

Enter glass number one of beer. I decided, I would follow KK’s method and whatever it looked like after a second beer was the color I was going to embrace as my roux. So with the oil and the flour in my dutch oven, I stood there with a beer in one hand and a whisk in the other, just hoping it would turn out ok.

Two beers and I successfully made a chocolately colored roux. As usual KK was right and with my “Trinity” (chopped celery, onions, and green pepper…an essential in almost every South Louisiana recipe) ready to go, I felt more certain that this gumbo would work.

I say work because my first attempt at gumbo about 3 years ago was just plain sad. I tried a oyster and shrimp gumbo and when it was done, it was more like burned flour and over cooked oyster soup. I vowed that I would wait before I attempted it again. So before making tonight’s rendition of gumbo, I looked over five different recipes, three from Jr. League cookbooks, including Talk About Good, Susan Spicer’s fabulous book, and finally a recipe on the Williams-Sonoma website from Dookie Chase. In particular, I loved Susan Spicer’s suggestion to put the chicken bones in my store bought stock to deepen the flavor. I thought it was fabulous.

Spread the chicken out in a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Roast in the oven until the chicken reaches 160 degrees on a meat thermometer. Remove the meat from the bones. Set the chicken meat to the side and add the bones to your stock pot. Bring the stock to a boil and allow it to boil for a few mintues, then reduce to a simmer while you work on your roux.

**Before you go any further prep all your ingredients. The best way to stop the roux at right time is to pour in the veggies, so it is best to have then prepped and in bowls near the stove.**

The Roux
In at least a 7 quart dutch oven over medium heat, add the oil and the flour, stirring constantly. I prefer to use a whisk (a flat whisk works best), but others I know like to use a wooden spoon, either will work, but make sure you keep it moving. You do not want to burn the flour, but if you do, just start from the beginning. No worries. Keep stirring until the roux reaches a chocolate syrup color (or you finish two beers).

Reduce the heat to low and add the onions, celery, green peppers, and garlic. Cook the mixture for 4 minutes. Combine the chicken and sausage. At this point everything will look like a brown mess. Add the paprika, cayenne, and thyme to the pot and stir to combine. Finally discard the chicken bones and add the stock a ladle-full at a time. Increase the heat to medium again, and while stirring constantly, bring the gumbo to a boil.

Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 45 minutes. This is usually just enough time to make some rice to go with your gumbo. I like long grain brown rice.

Remove the dutch oven from heat and add salt and pepper. If you will eat all your gumbo tonight, add the parsley and filé powder. I have read that while filé powder will thicken a gumbo, it can also make it stringy. Since H and I planned to eat this over the course of the week, I sprinkled a little on top of each portion.

To serve, add about a 1/2 cup of rice to the bowl, then ladle the gumbo over it. Make sure you have hot sauce on the table, and if you are feeling indulgent, I like to eat my gumbo with a fresh sweet corn muffin with garlic butter.

This chowder isn’t going to win any beauty contests, but it is definitely a winner in the kitchen. The recipe comes from a little book called 50 Chowders by Jasper White, and it could be overlooked given that the book is full of the most wonderful sounding soups and chowders. It’s the kind of recipe that you run across that easily could have come from your mother. My mom never made corn chowder when I was growing up, but this is exactly the kind of thing we would have had when summer was sinking into fall.

This is the perfect time of year for this chowder. It combines the last of the summer corn with the warmth and comfort of a fall soup. If this dish were clothing it would be that light sweater you put on during late summer evenings when you can feel the cool air of fall creeping into the night. This chowder is simultaneously a farewell to summer and a welcome to autumn.

This chowder is sure to become one of those recipes that we make for years to come. It’s very flavorful and comforting. The spice is just right and the ratio of stock to cream lends to a rich chowder but not overly so. The chowder also keeps well overnight and makes for a perfect lunch the next day.

If you head to your farmers’ market this weekend and come home with the last few ears of summer corn, I hope you try this. Maybe it will become one of your favorites, too.

1. Husk the corn. Carefully remove most of the silk by hand and then rub the ears with a towel to finish the job. Cut the kernels from the cobs and place in a bowl. You should have about 2 cups. Using the back of your knife, scrape down the cobs and add the milkly substance that oozes out to the corn kernels.
2. Heat a 3 to 4 quart heavy pot over low heat and add the diced bacon. Once it has rendered a few tablespoons of fat, increase the heat to medium and cook until the bacon is crisp and golden brown. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat, leaving the bacon in the pot.
3. Add the butter, onion, bell pepper, thyme, cumin, and turmeric and saute, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for about 8 minutes, until the onion and pepper are tender but not browned.
4. Add the corn kernels, potatoes, and stock, turn up the heat, cover, and boil vigoursly for about 10 minutes. Some of the potatoes will have broken up, but most should retain their shape. Use the back of your spoon to smash a bit of the corn and potatoes against the side of the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and season the chowder with salt and pepper.
5. Stir the cornstarch mixture and slowly pour it into the pot, stirring constantly. As soon as the chowder has come back to a boil and thickened slightly, remove from the heat and stir in the cream. Adjust the seasoning if necessary. If you are not serving the chowder within the hour, let it cool a bit, then refrigerate; cover the chowder after it has chilled completely. Otherwise, let is sit at room temperature for up to an hour, allowing the flavors to meld.
6. When ready to serve, reheat the chowder over low heat, don’t let it boil. Ladle into cups or bowls and sprinkle with the chopped chives.

So it should come as no surprise that I love homemade pizza. What’s not to love? It’s easy, it tastes good, and it tends to impress anyone who doesn’t make homemade pizza themselves. And while I love the ‘classic’ pizza combination of red sauce, mozzarella and Italian sausage, when I’m in the mood for something special, nothing beats a smoked salmon and brie pizza.

There’s nothing too labor intensive about this recipe. The only thing you need to make ahead is the pizza dough – and really, any recipe for pizza dough will work. Heck, if you’re not in the mood to wait the hour and a half to make homemade pizza dough you can check with your local grocery store to see if the bakery sells uncooked pizza dough. It’s an easy time saver that I have been known to use.

The cut-up brie is easy enough to prep. When I make this recipe I always throw the brie in the freezer for 15 minutes before I cut the rind off. The sub-zero temperature firms up the cheese and makes it much easier to cut into small pieces. I don’t have any trick to make the salmon easier to cut up – in fact, depending on the smoked salmon you use it may be easier to tear into little pieces rather than cutting it. As with everything in this easy recipe, use what works best for you.

The rest of the process is pretty self explanatory. Because the brie and smoked salmon are rather delicate – at least at high temperatures – you need to blind bake the pizza crust without any toppings. Once the crust is almost brown, you pull it from the oven and quickly scatter the cheese, salmon and onions over the top. Another few minutes in the oven melts everything together. What comes out is a wonderful combination of a pizza and a Sunday morning lox bagel. I would advise anyone making this to cut the pizza slices small, since the dish can be very rich. But even in a small slice the wonderfulness of homemade pizza makes it all worthwhile – and you never know who it might impress.

Smoked Salmon and Brie Pizza

Adapted from New Pizza by James McNair

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough

Vegetable or olive oil for brushing crust and drizzling over toppings

1 pound of brie cheese, rind discarded and cut into small pieces

12 ounces thinly sliced smoked salmon cut into small pieces

1/2 cup minced sweet onion ( I used green onions)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees (My oven smokes at that temperature – so I used 450 and it turned out fine). Brush pizza screen or pan with oil. Stretch out the pizza dough and place on the screen or pan. Prick the dough all over with a fork, then brush with oil.

Put the crust in the oven and bake until the crust just begins to brown (around 5-7 minutes). Remove the pan from the oven and top the crust with the cheese, followed by the salmon and onion. Drizzle evenly with oil. Return to the oven and bake until the crust is golden (around 5-7 minutes longer).

Remove the pizza from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Slice and serve immediately.

Last week, E, S, and I talked about the lack of peaches on our blog. How could we live in the South and not have yet posted anything about peaches?! So in honor of the peach, we decided to declare this week, Kitchen Confit Peach Week. In my mind, eating a sweet juicy peach is one of the glories of summer. Then there is the intoxicating peach smell. It really is hard to imagine anything better. Rarely do I think of a peach as anything but a sweet treat at the end of a summer meal. So when we all decided to find a peach dish to make for Peach Week, I decided to seek out something savory. That’s when I found a recipe for Grilled Shrimp Satay with Bok Choy and Peaches in the July Bon Appetit. It sounds like it would be a little sweet, a little spicy, and all around delcious.

The sauce was a mix of peanut butter, sugar, nectar, Chili sauce, rice vinegar, and soy sauce…really when you combine these ingredients does it get any better. Salty and Sweet. The only thing I thought it might need was a little extra chili sauce, a thought I was glad I had. Everything was easily grilled and tasted good. However, it just is not going to look good on a plate. As a grilled summer salad, it was quite delicious and refreshing. I will say, the grilled bok choy was probably my favorite part of this entire meal. I know I should be praising the peach, but I think I am just a tried and true Peach as dessert type eater. If I do decide to try this recipe again, I think I will add a little more acid to the sauce…maybe a little fish sauce. Also, while the heat came through in the bok choy and on the shrimp, it was barey noticable on the peaches. Anyone ever have that happen?

Have I cooked dinner all week? No. Do I come home, eat pizza, and lie on the sofa watching Seinfeld? Yes, yes, and yes. I am a poor excuse for a girl who fancies herself as a foodie. It’s been a lazy week, but I have the perfect lazy, summertime recipe to share with you. This salad is a no-cook (except for the orzo) dish that completely blew my expectations out of the water. When I first saw it, I immediately wanted to try it, but I thought it was going to be your average pasta salad — tasty but nothing especially stellar. I was wrong.

The salad has quickly become our new favorite dish. It makes for the perfect dinner on steamy summer nights. I don’t know about you but I’m not much in the mood to stand over a hot stove this time of the year. Plus it’s light and the perfect depository for all of those lovely vegetables you bring home from the farmers’ market wondering what to do with them.

It gets better.

The salad (minus the romaine) keeps beautifully overnight. What was a delicious dinner one night becomes the perfect lunch for the next day. The flavors mingle together to become one very tasty dish.

Given how easy this is to toss together, I have no excuse for my couch potato ways. And it’s done long before the pizza guy can deliver the goods.

Greek Salad with Orzo and Black-Eyed Peas
Adapted from Gourmet, August 2008

1. Cook orzo according to package instructions. Drain in a sieve and rinse under cold water until cool. Drain well.
2. Toss all ingredients together except romaine, feta, and peperoncini. Marinate for approximately 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Place mixture over romaine and top with feta and peperoncini.

As far back as I can remember eating, I have been eating grits. I know it sounds strange for a born and raised Californian to say she has been eating grits her entire life, but I take it as a sign that I was destined to spend a part of my life living in the South. Grits in my house growing up were almost always prepared simply (just boiled in water) and then served with lots of butter. Occasionally my grandmother would bake them, or fry them, but the majority of the time, I would just smother my grits in butter and devour them. Of course, I never realized that I was missing out one of the more fabulous ways to eat grits…with Shrimp.

Had I known this when I was younger, I would have made a point of eating shrimp and grits at every meal. I guess in the long run, it was a good thing I had to wait to learn of the glories of Shrimp and Grits. You know, good things come to those who wait. Boy did it last week when we had shrimp and grits with Crawfish and Pork Andouille Sausage!

One might call it excessive. One might call it gratuitious. I call it the perfect early Saturday morning breakfast. A pound of leftover shrimp, a half pound of sausage, leftover diced onion from the previous nights dinner, a green pepper, a little shredded cheese, a sprinkle of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, and of course GRITS! Now if you are not sausage fan, you can always substitute a couple slices of bacon. It was just what I needed to get the morning off to the right start.

1. In a saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, add the grits. Return the grits to a boil and then reduced the heat to simmer. Stir frequently until they reach your desired consistency. I usually cook them until the water is absorbed and they are thickened. Add 3 Tbsp of butter and stir to combine.

2. In a separate pan, melt 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Add the onions and green peppers and saute for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. In another pan add the remaining Tbsp of olive oil and saute the sausage for 10 minutes. Remove the sausage from the pan and set aside. Reserve some of the grease from the sausage

4. Using some of the reserved grease, saute the shrimp until pink.

5. To assemble, fill the bowls with Grits, then onions and peppers, shrimp, and sausage. If you so choose (and I always do) top with Tony’s and shredded cheese.

As an inexperienced cook, I am often overly ambitious when I plan a dinner party. Of course, I see it as my opportunity to try out a new dish I have found, which is great, but it also means I spend too much time in the kitchen and not enough time hanging out with my friends. The Barefoot Contessa talks about this in her book, Barefoot Contessa Parties! Her first party was an omelet party, which sounds great in theory, but in practice means very little time with those you have invited over.

A few weeks ago, I talked about my love of oysters and the fun H and I had roasting oysters over a fire pit on our vacation. That same night, H and I were responsible for planning all of dinner. A couple days before we left on our trip, I got my Splendid Table newsletter, “Weeknight Kitchen.” It contained a fantastic fish taco recipe. (If you are not signed up for this newsletter, you should be. The recipes are great!) Seeing as we would be at the beach, H and I thought it would be great for our dinner night. The best part was that it could be made in pieces, so I told myself, we could do some of the prep ahead of time, so we did not spend an entire evening in the kitchen.

Fast forward to Tuesday evening and there are H and I furiously whipping together our meal. I should have also remembered that on a beach vacation, my motivation drops to nil and all I want to do is sit by water and sip on margaritas. So we got started later than we planned and the timing was a little off. The nice thing about sharing a house with 10 other people is that you are never lacking for an extra pair of hands. Everyone had a hand in doing this meal.

Enter the Oysters…yes, they provided us with a great distraction, thus lots of prep time. While H built the fire for the oysters, I made the coleslaw and the marinade. Then while the oysters roasted on the fire pit, the fish and chicken had a little time to soak in the marinade. After we ate some oysters, the table had to be cleaned, so while our helpful crew cleaned and reset the table, H cooked the fish and chicken on the extra grill, and I heated the tortillas over the fire pit. (Thank goodness this house was equipped with multiple grills)

In the end, these were the most flavorful fish tacos I have ever had. Even a day later when I ate them as leftovers at lunch, they were fantastic. We served the tacos with some black beans that H made. I did heed a little of Ina’s advice and purchased guacamole and fresh pico de gallo. In the end, H and I sat down surrounded by 9 of our friends and ate delicious fish tacos and sipped on homemade margaritas. Just the kind of feast you need at the beach.

Coleslaw:
1. Thinly slice the cabbage. You will most likely want to quarter it and core it before slicing. I kept slicing until my bowl was full.
2. Mix together the sour cream, lime juice, cumin, garlic, and salt together in a bowl
3. Combine the cabbage, onion, and cilantro, with the dressing and place in the refrigerator.
(According to Lynn Rosetto Kasper, the coleslaw can be prepared to this point up to 1 day ahead.)

Fish
1. Throw the olive oil, chipotles, lime juice, and cumin in a blender and puree.
2. Place the chicken and fish into a shallow baking dish.
3. Pour the mixture over the fish and chicken, coating the pieces thoroughly. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. (At this point, Lynn Rosetto Kasper says you can be prepared to this point up to 8 hours ahead.)
4. Preheat the grill. Right before you place the fish on the grill, soak a paper towel with a little oil and carefully with your tongs, run the paper towel over the grill.
5. Carefully put the fish fillets and chicken on the grill and cook until just cooked through. The chicken will take much longer to cook than the fish. Once thoroughly cooked, transfer the fish and chicken to separate platters.
6. Meanwhile, heat the tortillas over a fire pit. Wrap them in foil to keep warm.
7. Using two forks, break up the fish into large pieces. The chicken can be sliced at an angle. Serve the fish and chicken, with warm tortillas, guacamole, coleslaw, and salsa, let everyone make their own tacos.